JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot Inks First-Look Movie and TV Deal with Warner Bros.

On By Littum

The hiring of JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot at Warner Bros. Television will hit the 20-year-olds. After months of negotiations, the company has closed a new film and TV deal with Warner Bros., sources tell Deadline. The pact is believed to be two-year, first-look, non-exclusive in both areas.

It follows Bad Robot’s previous big five-year exclusive deal, signed in 2019 at the height of the Peak TV-driven overall deal bubble. That $250 million deal was among a number of big-ticket items under scrutiny after the April 2022 end of the Warner Bros.-Discovery merger as HBO pulled the plug on Abrams’ sci-fi drama Demimonde.

Ultimately, Bad Robot’s deal went ahead, and the company saw a few new series hit the air this summer, The Caped Crusaderwhich launched on Prime Video, and David E. Kelley’s Presumed innocent for Apple TV+, which started as a limited series but was renewed for a second season after becoming the streamer’s #1 drama launch. Three documentaries/documentaries, Charlie Hustle & The Matter of Pete Rose, Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes and Yankees winalso debuted last summer.

The TV marketplace isn’t where it used to be five years ago when Bad Robot’s former WB pact was struck, with overall deals down significantly in volume and price tags after PeakTV on the heels of the pandemic and the twin Hollywood strikes amid the industry’s contraction and belt-tightening of the old media companies. In many cases, master pacts are followed by less expensive first-look deals, which give creatives creative flexibility. This is the case with Bad Robot at Warner Bros.

Coming up Bad Robot is a drama series Duster on Max, with Speed ​​Racer among others shows in the works. On the film side, the company has a number of projects in development, with its first film under the Warner Bros. deal, FLowervale Street, slated for release in 2025. Abrams is also directing his first feature film in years with a mystery WB film awaiting production in early 2025.

Abrams has been with Warner Bros. TV for 18 years. His company Bad Robot had been based at Paramount before he signed the film and television deal with Warner Bros. in 2019.